African Art in Transit is an absorbing account of the commodification and circulation of African art objects in the international art market. Christopher Steiner's analysis of the role of the African middleman in linking those who produce and supply works of art in Africa with those who buy and collect so-called 'primitive' art in Europe and America is based on extensive field research among the art traders in Côte d'Ivoire. Steiner provides a lucid interpretation which reveals not only a complex economic network with its own internal logic and rules, but also an elaborate process of transcultural valuation and exchange. By focusing directly on the intermediaries in the African art trade, he unveils a critical new perspective on how symbolic codes and economic values are mediated in the context of shifting geographic and cultural domains. He questions conventional definitions of authenticity in African art by demonstrating how the categories 'authentic' and 'traditional' are continually redefined.

While many publications focus on the aesthetics and symbolism of African art, few explore the historical dynamics and exchanges that have informed the way people in Africa have created, preserved, collected, and sold their artworks to local and foreign patrons. The book addresses key issues of market trends, the transformation in taste and aesthetics in relation to changing historical conditions, and the role of artisans, traders, and collectors in mediating knowledge and value in the international art market. Africa in the Market, which is richly illustrated, introduces to the public the artwork in the Amrad African Art collection at the Royal Ontario Museum. The collection contains a wide range of mostly 20th century pieces that illustrate the creative achievements and cultural meanings of art objects produced and/or collected at a time of great international expansion of the market for African art. The objects are framed and interpreted within academic essays that highlight the significant role that African makers and dealers have played in shaping Western understanding of African art. The essays are based on the long-term fieldwork of a number of anthropologists and art historians who have contributed original and innovative research to the discussion. The book explores the significance of 20th-century artistic production as a material component of local traditions and, at the same time, as artifacts circulating in a global market where local specificities are often lost.

"An outstanding set of studies that work well with each other to produce truly substantial and rich insights into the making and consuming of art in the colonial and post-colonial world."—Susan S. Bean, Curator, Peabody Essex Museum

The second edition of Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation is both an introduction to the cultures of Africa and a history of the interpretations of those cultures. Key essays explore the major issues and debates through a combination of classic articles and the newest research in the field. Explores the dynamic processes by and through which scholars have described and understood African history and culture Includes selections from anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and critics who collectively reveal the interpenetration of ideas and concepts within and across disciplines, regions, and historical periods Offers a combined focus on ethnography and theory, giving students the means to link theory with data and perspective with practice Newly revised and updated edition of this popular text with 14 brand new chapters and two new sections: Conflict and Violent Transformations; and Development, Governance and Globalization

Lives in Transit chronicles the dangerous journeys of Central American migrants in transit through Mexico. Drawing on fieldwork in humanitarian aid shelters and other key sites, Wendy A. Vogt examines the multiple forms of violence that migrants experience as their bodies, labor, and lives become implicated in global and local economies that profit from their mobility as racialized and gendered others. She also reveals new forms of intimacy, solidarity, and activism that have emerged along transit routes over the past decade. Through the stories of migrants, shelter workers, and local residents, Vogt encourages us to reimagine transit as a site of both violence and precarity as well as social struggle and resistance.